Fixing A Broken Wheel

Greeting

Welcome.

Introduction

For those who don’t know me, I am an ordained Messianic Rabbi, ordained in 1996 by Rabbi David Hargis, one of the early forefathers of the Messianic movement.

I am an Ashkenzi Jew, a Galitzianer. I realize Messianics are addicted to Sephardi customs - but that was a David Hargis thing, since he believed he was of Sephardi origin. Bottom line is, to me it’s Shabbos, not Shabbat. Although I do know Hebrew, my custom is often Yiddish. Please don’t correct my Ashkenazi nusach. Thanks.

Although I spent an entire year as a Lubavitcher Chassid, I don’t want anyone thinking I was an ordained Rabbi who became a believer. Others make up stories like that - I don’t. My family was so assimilated and non-observant - “Frei” is what it’s called - that I didn’t find out I was Jewish until I was 8 years old. We had no bar mitzvah, we never celebrated a Jewish holiday or custom. It was traditional American holidays - Christmas, easter, halloween. I’m guessing that my family dropped all the old world customs on the boat over from Germany in 1888. My first ancestor from Prussia was Jacob Raffel. There. That’s all the introductions that nobody really cares about. The thing that’s important to me is that nobody makes mistakes or claims I was frum from birth - I wasn’t.

Messianic Teachings

I can honestly say that most of the teachings in the Messianic movement - including some of the teachings I’m going to be addressing - originated in Rabbi Hargis, or his contemporaries. This time I was ordained was when the Messianic movement was still very young, and David Hargis knew people or talked with people like James Trimm, Michael Rood, Avi Ben Mordecai, David Sedaka, and others whose names you may recognize. I do not come to criticize David Hargis, but to complete the work he began just before he died. I’m going to say that he was very conflicted in his beliefs towards the end, having a conflict between his Assembly of God past and his Messianic teachings. Because he was so visible in the Messianic world, he was caught in a conflict of having to publicly confess teachings he began to have doubts about. I was there at the pivotal time when David was having problems, and I can honestly tell you he often revealed his heart to me that he was having trouble believing the things he once taught.

if anyone has access to tapes of his sermons at the Gloucester church, you’ll hear it where he praised the Assembly of God church, and here I was confronting him during the week after, and asking, “What are you doing?” And I was completely rebellious and completely wrong.

That’s just the preamble to tell you that yes, I was in the Messianic movement as a Rabbi probably before a lot of you were born or even bar mitzvah’d. And unfortunately, some of the teachings I hear people in the Torah movement advocate I originated, so over the coming weeks we’re going to deal with those.

Good Christians are often mistaken

Good Christians are often mistaken in their beliefs. That’s a paraphrase by Matthew Henry. I can list some Christians who are very good Christians who believe some questionable things.

Billy Graham for instance believed in Baptismal regeneration for infants who had water wiped on their foreheads. That’s Biblicly not a Baptism, so it can’t regenerate, and that’s not the purpose of baptism.

There’s a difference between error, heresy, and damnable heresy. Believing infants can be saved by rubbing water on their forehead, pouring, sprinkling or shaking droplets of water on them is error, profound error. It’s not damning.

Now I’m not the judge. God is the Judge, and has delivered that judgment into the hands of Jesus Christ. If you really insist on saying it in Hebrew, Yeshua HaMoshiach.

Unlike a lot of other Jews, I really don’t have a problem saying Jesus. Honestly, I don’t, so don’t give me the line “Jews are uncomfortable with the name Jesus.” They’re just as uncomfortable with the name Yeshua. Changing the language isn’t going to make it any easier. That’s one reason we are commanded to make the people Israel jealous.

Now, it may be possible to believe in heresy to a minor point and not be damned, but it depends on the heresy. I’m very reluctant here to advocate which ones it’s possible. Better still to just say, if you believe heresy to a minor degree, it’s questionable.

Other heresies, it is not possible to believe and be saved. In this category is the person and work of Yeshua Ha’moshiach, Jesus Christ.

I have heard Messianics say that Yeshua saves, but Jesus does not . That cannot be said under the influence of the Holy Spirit. Sorry. It’s heresy. Jesus Christ and Yeshua are the same.

If’ you’re going to give me the standard holy name argument here about pagan monsters and greek names, I’m going to demand you back up your claims by giving me primary sources for your arguments. Primary sources would be the writings of any first, second or third century author. I’ll take anyone up to and including Nicean era writers. I have no axe to grind about post-nicean authors, but by that point they were mostly free from persecution, and for the first time believers were free to read the writings of primary sources, and now we begin to get secondary sources coming in.

SHOW ME that the name Jesus was deliberately borrowed from Zeus. I’m sorry, “Die Hard III” is not a valid source.

Who borrowed it? When did they borrow it? Where is it written that someone did this? Where can I find polemic writing against this in the first three centuries?

If you’re going to argue from the Greek, I’m going to demand you cite the manuscript that supports your reading. I’m also going to demand you produce a Seminary transcript for at least one year of classroom attended Greek.

There’s far too many Messianics who - at least in my day - would open Strongs to the back, look up a definition, and then make an ignorant argument that no first year Greek student would ever make. Nowadays, I suppose you look it up in Logos Basic. You can’t be looking it up in Logos Gold, because there’s enough information in Logos Gold - or Accordance Greek Discoverer - to show most of these often repeated arguments are embarrassingly bad.

If this sermon upsets you, I apologize a little. I’m trying to step on toes here, because I hear so many Messianics make claims that are covering the spectrum from erroneous to heretical to outright blasphemy. If one of your beliefs is addressed this morning, consider yourself rebuked, repent and move on.

Methodology and consistency

A standard Jehovah’s Witness argument is that the name of Jehovah was removed from the New Testament manuscripts. Let’s examine that, because I’m going to consistently use the same methodology to challenge this argument as most Messianic ones. I’m hoping you brought steel toed boots this Erev Shabbos.

What historical figure cited this? I don’t mean Charles Taze Russell, I mean anyone up to and including the Nicean era. Can you show me a single Christian author who said this?

Second, can you show me an original Greek manuscript that features the name Jehovah? I’ll take any of them up to and including Nicean era.

In case you don’t know, Logos will sell you - gladly - a collection of the Greek manuscripts for your Logos library. A whopping fifty bucks, but some times during the year for sale for twenty. I recommend ALL of you buy it. on sale.

I don’t need to tell you about the third problem with this, but it’s based upon argument two - can you show me a single early manuscript that has the name of God in Hebrew written - in Hebrew - in the place of the Greek word The’os? Because I don’t have to tell the Holy Name’rs here that the word Jehovah did not exist until a few centuries ago. Prior to that it was written in the Hebrew as the Tetragrammaton, and in Greek as the Nomina Sacra, very often the Greek Theta and final Sigma, Theta and Omega or Theta Epsilon with a line across the top.

The JW’s respond that this was how it was originally written. I repeat both arguments. Some will try to bring up rules of Greek. I then go to my default Greek argument - can you show me your seminary transcripts that show at least one - two years preferable - of classroom participation in Koine Greek?

Okay. Hopefully that didn’t hurt too bad.

Because it’s about to really hurt.

Holy Name adherents use essentially the Jehovah’s Witness argument. If we have to reject the Jehovah’s witness argument as erroneous, we have to do the same with the Holy Name argument.

Early manuscripts such as P66, P72, P45, just about every Pre-Nicean manuscript used Nomina Sacra, which I’ve already described.

All of them used Greek letters for the Nomina Sacra. There is no Greek manuscript that I have seen - and remember you can buy all of the pre-nicean maniscripts in Logos and Accordance - that uses Hebrew letters within the Greek manuscript. You can’t say they didn’t have the font - they are all hand written.

Every manuscript prior to 1500.

So that’s argument three.

Argument one - which historical pre-nicene Christian writer cited this? Name your primary source quote. i’m not interested in secondary or tertiary sources. I can write a book saying the earth is flat and sits on the roof of a Honda Accord. Citing my book can’t be considered proof, just whacky.

Now, if you find a Biblical commentary that cites the argument, that’s secondary. You have one reference backed up by an earlier one.

Going to the original source the commentary cited - that’s a primary source. Can you find it in Augustine? Chrysostom? Justin Martyr? Find me one credible original source, and I’ll say you might have a case. That’s not the proof. You’d need to show me one of the first thousand manuscripts we have in codex or lectionary form, papyrus or scroll that uses Hebrew lettering.

They didn’t know Hebrew? Remember, a lot of the first century witnesses we had were Jewish or taught by Jews. If the Holy Name argument were Biblical, you’d think the Apostle John would have taught it to Chrysostom, who would have put it in his epistle. Or Justin Martyr.

So the Nomina Sacra. Theta and final sigma, or theta and omega are the common renderings, sometimes theta and upsilon. Well, guess what? Kurios, Lord, is missing from all early manuscripts in its longer form. Instead, it is Kappa and Upsilon with a line above it.

Kurios, Lord, is considered Nomina Sacra. In Hebrew, it’s Adonai.

Xi and Rho together with a line above it - Christ - is Nomina Sacra in all Pre-Nicene manuscripts I’ve read. I’ll tell you in the interests of honesty I spent only one hour going through pre-nicean manuscripts looking. I was pretty well convinced that all early manuscripts used Nomina Sacra for Spirit, Holy Spirit, Christ, Jesus, Lord, and God, even the words the Father, Pater or Pi and Alpha with a line above it.

They didn’t know what they were doing? Many of the early manuscripts were written in secret scriptoriums by professional scribes. We can date them by the style of writing, even by the choice of nomina sacra used. Second century maniscripts, meaning 100 to 199, used backward leaning writing. There’s majescule - all capital - versus miniscule - all lower case. These help identify location and era.

So Holy Nameism falls apart. It’s not Biblical. Start saying Lord. If you’re Holy Name’ist, spend a good week in prayer and saying, “Jesus.”

Jesus in Greek

For those who don’t know, the New Testament was written in Greek. We have the writing of one early church father - just one - who claims Matthew wrote his gospel originally in Hebrew, then wrote it in Greek.

What would the Hebrew read? If this allegation is factual, it would read exactly what the Greek reads. How do I know? Because God miraculously preserved the Greek texts.

Now I do know we have a fragment found in Qumran of Hebrew writing that appears to be a verse from Matthew. It’s from the right time period to be a fragment from the original Matthew Gospel autograph, but this assumes the allegation that Matthew wrote in Hebrew first, then Greek is accurate and not just a folk tale.

All it proves is that a fragment of Hebrew writing that appears to have a quotation from Matthew exists. For all we know, that fragment could have been a n Essene document and some Essene Rabbi could have heard Jesus speak and borrowed the teaching.

Do I think it’s genuine? Do I think it’s part of the autograph? It doesn’t matter what my personal opinion is, which is yes. BUT. What matters is, what did God preserve?

The Apostle Paul taught many things and wrote many things. But only the teachings that were “thus sayeth the Lord” were inspired, and only the writings that were Scripture have been preserved. Anti-Christian persecution for three centuries ensured - by the providence of God - that anything Paul wrote that wasn’t Scripture was destroyed. Why? So we didn’t confuse Paul’s family letters with Scripture.

This is the doctrine of divine preservation. The Scriptures, coming to us in the form of an embarrassingly large amount of ancient Greek manuscripts - I say that because the Greek New Testament is better attested in largest number of ancient manuscripts than any other manuscript by far. Compare ancient writings, the amount of manuscripts versus how close they are in age to the original manuscripts. It’s not even close. Some ancient non-biblical books, such as the writings of Caesar we have six manuscripts and the oldest one is dated eight centuries after he died.

The fact Matthew wrote one manuscript in Hebrew and that only a fragment of perhaps a dozen words is preserved tells you God did not intend for that manuscript to teach us.

Instead, as it was God’s intent that the Gospel go out among the Gentiles, the NT was written in the predominant language of the Gentiles, which was Greek after the time of Alexander. It even went from attic Greek - the educated person’s language - to Koine Greek, the every day man’s Greek.

How do you write Yeshua in Greek? There’s no Sh sound. You don’t have that consonant construct in Koine Greek.

So it becomes Yesua.

Y is spelled Ie in Greek. So, Iesua.

Now, here’s the final step of the puzzle. Most proper names in Greek ended in the letter sigma, to identify them as proper names in the text. If Jesus is speaking about a little rock, he would say Petra. If he’s talking about Peter, it’s Petros. The alpha letter changes to the -os suffix to show its talking about a person.

So let’s take the Iesua, and add final sigma suffix. It’s now Iesous. We know you’re talking about a person now, reading the name in the text.

In the middle ages, English began to deviate from its Germanic roots, and the Ie sound changed to a Je sound.

So now the Yeshua is changed to Jesus.

Zeus is not spelled the same is Iesous in Greek. It’s tin foil hat apologetics to claim it is. If you’ve been teaching it, you now know it’s wrong. Stop it. You are rebuked. Now you know, and from this moment on you will be accountable if you knowingly teach something you know is wrong.

Anti-semitic church fathers?

Let’s go to the next erroneous contention - the Jewishness of the New Testament was removed by the early Gentiles.

You all know where I’m going.

Cite your primary source. Can you name one early Christian author who decried this practice? Everyone assumes that the early Christians were all goyim, but in reality, Jewish believers dominated in numbers into the second century. It wasn’t until the fourth century that Judaism declared it another religion, because Gentile believers finally were in the majority. Some Jewish apologists try to move that number back two centuries, but again - cite your sources.

Can you show me how P66 - a very early manuscript - contains Jewishness that is missing by a late third century manuscript?

Can you show me from historical sources what church council condemned keeping kosher or the sabbath?

Indeed, we’ve got Biblcai evidence that Shabbos observance dissappeared among the Apostles early on, before ACts was done. Believers met on the first day of the week. Can a case be made that it was done on Saturday nigt after the Temple Havdalah? Possibly. But there’s no reference to it. Indeed, sunrise services may have dominated. You went to Erev Shabbos, had the seudah the next day, Havdalah that night, and the next day the believers met.

WHere is the historical argument against idolatrous sun worship? It’s not there.

We Messianics create these ridiculous circular reasoning arguments that sound logical, but have no basis in fact. WE read a book dating to 1990 and assume its the truth. “Wow this is shocking, I’ve never head this before!” But did you check it? I never would have gone to Chabad if I’d checked Scriptural quotations. Seriously. Any Christian book no matter who the author should be read with your Bible open.

If I have to strain a verse - even just a little bit - to make a point, I have wrestled the Bible to suit my argument. It’s called Eisogesis, not Exegesis. And to be really blunt, over ninety percent of what I read from Messianics is all Eisogetical scripture twisting. We’ve made a wax nose of the Bible, and that’s frightening. I do not want to have to answer for that at the Believer’s judgment.

Believe it or not, the New Testament does teach exactly what Christians have believed it taught all along. It doesn’t fit with your theology? Then you’ve got the process backwards.

We derive our theology from the Bible. We do not force our Bible to conform to our theology, or we got our theology wrong.

So, what do we do about Kosher, Tallis, yarmulke, tefillin?

There’s three groups of thought on this.

One. You have to do it or you’ll burn in hell.

Two. We do it because it creates a Jewish atmosphere and it’s fun. Plus, it really aggravates Orthodox Jews because it’s Jesus people wearing it, and they’re provoked to jealousy. Yay Jesus people.

Three. Jews are required to do it.

Which one sounds the most plausible?

Option two.

What about Shabbos and High Holy days, and the other yontiff?

What about them? We do them as a witness. I would say celebrating Christ’s birth and resurrection are far more important than Sukkos. Should we be celebrating any of them? Well, find me in the New Testament epistles any mention of Yom Kippur besides the explanation of typology in Hebrews.

I’m going to sum up the Torah argument by saying this - if you have to add commentary to make Galatians conform to your theology, you’re doing it wrong.

Again, we derive our theology from the Bible, and not the other way around.

Let’s read Galatians, Colossians, Hebrews, and Romans using the normal-literal-grammatical method. That’s the consistent method of interpretation is to read all of Scripture using this method.

Galatians 1:6 says that anyone who preaches any other Gospel is accursed. That’s a bottom line.

What does Romans say? What does Galatians say? What does Colossians say? The Law is lawful if used justly. What commandments in the Torah are repeated in the New Testament?

I am the Lord your God. You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make a graven image. You shall not take the Lord thy God’s name in vain. You shall honor your father and mother. You will not steal. You will not murder. You shall not bear false witness. You shall not commit adultery. You shall not covet your neighbor’s belongings or wife.

You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your might. You shall love your neighbor as yourself.

That is the New Testament law.

Ceremonial law is not repeated in the New Testament, Civil law is not repeated in the new testament. Just nine commandments under two headings, love the Lord your God and love thy neighbor.

That’s it.

I know you’ve heard differently. I know there’s a thousand Messianic teachers saying something else. Ignore them. They’re ranging from Erroneous, to heresy, to damnable heresy.

Anyone - Anyone - under my guidance who denies Christ will be placed under Church discipline and cast out. This is a damnable heresy. I can’t have fellowship with you if you deny this.

Anyone who denies the Trinity as a Biblical teaching will also be placed under church discipline.

Don’t play semantics on this. Trust the witness of the Bible which bears witness against you. You are damned unless you repent.

THe Apostles Creed dates back to 200 AD. Yes, it was not standardized wording until 700 AD, but the doctrinal positions contained were in place by the third century. That’s pre-nicea, for you conspiracy theorists. It identifies God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. The New Testament identifies the Holy Spirit as God in the book of Acts.

We need consistant hermeneutics. We need a high understanding of Scripture as inspired, inerrent, preserved and sufficient. Gentiles changed the Torah? If you believe that, you have no doctrine of inerrency and preservation of Scripture, and it violates everything we know of church history. It’s a theory without proof, contradicted by ugly facts.

Don’t believe Jesus is God? You have no doctrine of Scripture as inerrant or inspired. You also have no light in you according to the Scriptures - and this is the biggest weight crushing the Messianic movement. We tolerate apostates among Messianics with no word of rejection or reproach. If you reject the deity of Christ, you are not my brother. I have no fellowship with you, and neither should any other Messianic.

Almost every Messianic conspiracy theory points to an utter lack of doctrinal understanding and a lack of belief in the doctrines of Scripture. You pay lip service to them and deny them in the same breath.

The Book of Enoch, by the way, was never accepted as Scripture because it never existed before the 8th century, and even then could only be found in Ethiopia. I was fascinated to see it quoted in the TV series “Millennium” but that’s as far as it goes.

Changes coming

We’re going to have some changes. Change is almost always painful, and some will be offended and leave. The New Testament says that. It’s a clear teaching. Biblical truth is uncomfortable to heretics and apostates. It’s a little annoying to those who are erroneous. It’s humbling to me to have the word of God reprove me. And it does, let me assure you. I can be wrong. God’s word cannot be.

I will preach the Bible, I will teach the truth, no matter the consequences. Do you still get to wear Tallis and yarmulke? If you’re a man, yes! There’s nothing wrong with it. But understand this - do not think it’s mandatory. Do not write letters and blog articles and start podcasting that it is mandatory. You are accountable to God for what you believe and what you teach.

Do you get to eat treif? Sure. Jesus declared all foods clean. Do not declare unclean what God has called clean.

The dividing line is this - all heretics and apostates reject the Bible as inspired, inerrant, preserved and sufficient. Almost all erroneous teachers do as well.

Let’s stop playing synagogue and be one. Let’s stop trying to find ways to justify tallis and being a Messianic believer and just be one.

Get rid of the phony conspiracy theories and tin foil hats. There’s certainly enough real conspiracies hitting the light of day without making up “Hey Zeus” holy name conspiracies.

If you have a Bible translation - and one Messianic translation falls into this category - it’s really a paraphrase, not a translation - that teaches any of these things, throw it away. Get a real Bible by a real team of translators. If you’re obsessed with using Jewish names, sure, fine. Go ahead and substitute them.

If I’ve offended you or challenged your beliefs, make time to see me this week. I’ll be glad to go over this in detail with you.

Lord, help us to bow the knee to you, and allow your word to teach us. Purge from us false teachings and any leaven of conspiracy based upon falsity. Help us to love you and love one another and walk in truth, In Jesus name we pray, Amen.